


The Easy Favourite

by AndreaLyn



Category: Band of Brothers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-01
Updated: 2014-03-01
Packaged: 2018-01-14 05:51:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1255288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AndreaLyn/pseuds/AndreaLyn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are stories no matter where you are, but it's hard to stop them from spreading -- true or not.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Easy Favourite

There’s more than one target when it comes to hustling and they’ve lost count of how many beers have been imbibed -- foam clinging to upper lips only to be licked off by eager tongues (that will, at some point later in the evening, be put to better use). In this case, a new target and goal is what comes between the games.   
  
“Who’s that replacement, the redhead?”  
  
“What, Babe? Bill’s got him under the old wing,” George cracks the joke as they swap cigarettes, trading them as Buck lights the tips. They stand under the awnings of the ‘pub’ as the locals call it and glance into the hazy distance every once in a while. They’re surrounded by shadows and the cigarettes burn bright in the foggy English night. “Think we can take ‘im?”  
  
“You and me, George? Anyone,” Buck assures easily, believing it. “You and me, we can do anything.”  
  
Somehow, they go from subtle convincers to being pressed up against the alley-wall of the bar and they’re under the influence of too-many fine pale ales. Buck can taste if on George’s lips, sampling the scent of cigarette with his eager tongue and chapped lips soaked in alcohol and the air of a bad idea. Reality is bound to come down like a cloud of cigarette smoke and settle in on them, choking them, but not just yet. There are too many dark places to lose yourself or to make a memory you never intend to remember in Aldbourne.  
  
They’ve found themselves one of those little dark nooks.  
  
And then it’s all about those two packs to be won.   
  
“Anything,” Buck murmurs against George’s ear later in the evening when they’re collecting on their winnings and when he licks his lip, there’s the faint taste of cigarette, alcohol and  _George_  still there.   
  
*  
  
Nixon does not play baseball.   
  
Sorry, the way it goes, it’s “Mrs. Nixon’s baby boy does not play any  _sports_  let alone ones that make him run for no fucking good reason.” And then there’s a swig of alcohol to punctuate that point. They’re out by the baseball field in Austria and Buck’s doing this at Dick’s behest, to try and see if Nix is a real lost cause when it comes to a variety of sports.  
  
They figure if anyone’s going to sell this pitch, it’s bound to be Buck.   
  
“C’mon, you seriously have  _no_  interest in the sport?”  
  
He’s fighting a losing battle, he knows that much. They’re both slurring and slightly drunk from raiding the town’s supplies of alcohol and it’s already dark out, so they’ve gone from drinking lightly to drinking like it’s Sink’s orders. And Nix hasn’t said a word since his emphatic denial. Not one. So Buck picks up his trudging feet and plants himself down on the bench next to Nix, rubbing a hand over his face.  
  
“Y’know, if you really wanted to sell this pitch, you’d add in incentives or something,” Nix casually (and finally) comments, bringing the flask to his lips and taking a long swig of whatever’s filling it today. Buck glances over and in the darkness of the night, can see shadows on Nix’s face that betrays that he’s feeling the stress of their situation and there are lines beginning to form.  
  
He contemplates what kind of incentives would entice Nix and avoids mentioning that he can drink every time he hits a base. Instead, he goes for the easy joke. “I ever tell you how baseball’s a real turn on for some people?”  
  
“You one of those people?”  
  
That joke wasn’t so light anymore. Hell, Buck might almost think it’s  _serious_.  
  
Turns out, it’s much more serious when they’re horizontal on that bench and the flask is only making appearances to fuel them in the form of liquid courage and Buck’s proving just  _how much_  baseball can be  _very_  interesting.  
  
*  
  
“Kitty, Kitty, Kitty, Kitty,” might have been all that Buck ever heard out of Harry Welsh for the first little while in Aldbourne. Yeah, he’s sure it might’ve been something else, but that’s all it comes across as. In fact, Buck tells him as much while they’re checking out their quarters and Harry reclines on a bed, lips crushed around a cigarette like it’s been  _very_  good to him and Harry’s just trying to return the favor.   
  
It’s “goddamn annoying”, is how Buck puts it.  
  
Harry asks what they ought to talk about in the place of the woman he left behind a hundred, a thousand, too-many-miles-away, and Buck thinks that they ought to screw talking completely. He plucks the cigarette from Harry’s lips and proves that the world did not start and does not end with Kitty. There’s a slow and biting kiss and Buck doesn’t even bother to lay a knee or a hand to the bed, hovering over Harry like some kind of ghost so that Harry can say that this never happened and Buck can swear to a judge that he’d never been there because not a fingerprint was found (lip-marks on the other hand…).  
  
Eventually, Buck pulls away and with the usurped cigarette, he takes a long drag and exhales a puff of a smoke ring to the ceiling.   
  
Harry’s the one who puts the cigarette out and locks the door to give them some kind of strange privacy.  
  
They don’t talk about Kitty for the rest of the night, but whether it’s because their mouths are otherwise occupied or because they’ve found better things to talk about, Buck’ll never say.   
  
*  
  
There is no letter this time.  
  
There is a bed, though. Buck’s taking a long look at Malarkey’s digs in Paris. He’s been around to do regimental training for the boys coming in, but he hasn’t had a place to sleep like this. A low whistle comes from Buck and he catches Malarkey’s eye to the side, giving him a wink. “Dick really set you up nice, huh,” Buck comments, voice full of life and all the things it had been missing in the cold forests of the Ardennes. The answer to that is lost by the time Buck has a hand on Mal’s hip and they’ve moved from small talk to hushed exchanges about what they’ve been doing in the time they spent away from Easy. Long fingers creep downwards and Buck’s hand tucks into Mal’s trousers, unzips them from behind with the pressure of a thumb and knocks the buttons out of the way, too.  
  
Buck rests his chin against Mal’s shoulder and they talk like old friends as Buck’s hand strokes with an almost vexatious slowness that’s making Mal grit his teeth and bite out his response of, “No, I have not tried the Metro as of…y-yet, sir.” They continue this exchange until Mal is mumbling a soft ‘oh fuck, oh god’ and coming into Buck’s hand and just like every other time they’ve done this, they don’t kiss.   
  
“One hell of a room,” is all Buck comments to it when an hour has passed and they’re both far more unwound than they were when they first set foot inside.  
  
Malarkey just grins at him, red hair tousled and wild. “Guess you’ll have to come back to it, admire it all the more.”  
  
“How’s tomorrow sound?”  
  
It sounds, as Malarkey says while seeing him out, like a date.   
  
Which, as Buck comments in reply, is a good thing because he doesn’t go all the way until date number three.   
  
*  
  
Bill’s the one who helps Buck back to find  _the_  door when all’s said and done and Buck’s the one supporting Bill while he tries to get used to a pair of crutches that neither of them would like to acknowledge. They talk about Babe and Joe and the boys and the rest and eventually, they find the door in a shattered little town atop a pile of other wreckage waiting to go somewhere, anywhere but there.  
  
“Still here,” Buck announces with quiet wonder resonating in his tone.  
  
“Guess they’re saving it for your museum,” Bill cracks with a laugh, leaning on Buck more than he used to, one arm wrapped in a snake of a wind around both the crutch and Buck’s bicep, clutching on while the crutches are still so new. Fingers occasionally slip and grasp places they shouldn’t and Buck doesn’t so much as say a word.   
  
They end up sitting in the shadow of a decimated building that was probably once a home for someone and Bill’s fingers are still grasping those inappropriate places. Hidden by the dark as they are, it’s easy to pretend no one can possibly be watching in this deserted town where they lost so much – where Buck began that speedy spiral downwards. Zippers are pushed down and neither of them says a word. If they had, all they’d do is acknowledge that they need  _something_  to ignore their present reality and this is good enough. It doesn’t mean anything. It could never mean anything like that.  
  
Buck helps Bill up when the shadows have grown and they swallow up the places that had once been cast in sunlight and they’re out of there by the time the moon is risen in the sky. They’re gone before the night can show them the bloodstains on the walls and the craters left behind by their war.  
  
They’re gone before they can remember all the things they lost in places like these.   
  
THE END


End file.
